“Thank you, and a particular thank you to my
friend Cindy Brown for inviting me to be with you. I
think we need to be realistic about where our Navy is today,
and where we can take it in the next few years. Right
now, today, we have 283 battle force ships. This number
is less than any time since 1916. That is right, we are
a smaller Navy now than we have been for 93 years. We
have fewer sailors than we have had since 1941.

“All this has occurred because our eyes have
been elsewhere. During the Cold War, the Fleet was an
indispensible asset. We of course had the Army
positioned to repel the Soviets in Europe, and the Air Force
was on constant vigil for a nuclear confrontation, but
American power around the world was reflected by the Fleet,
and the Fleet countered any and all attempts by the Soviets
from exerting undue influence with their sizable naval
force.

“All that changed after the fall of the Berlin
Wall. We forgot that we are a Maritime nation. We
forgot that lesson of history that only the nations with
powerful navies are able to exert power and influence and
when a navy disappears, so does that nation’s
power.

“So where are we on that timeline? I
submit we are on a bad glide slope, but not so far committed
that we cannot recover. I believe that we can and we
must rebuild our fleet. But we need to build the right
mix of vessels and we need to build vessels that are
affordable. We must not lose our ability to keep our
trade lanes open.

“People scoff at talk like this, but for the
past year and a half one of the busiest trade routes in the
world has been plagued by pirates operating from the failed
state of Somalia. And until very recently we have been
unable to do much about these pirates because we lacked a
number of capabilities, including the numbers of vessels
needed to patrol the Gulf of Aden.

“But this concern extends far beyond the
problem of piracy. What happens if our fleet atrophies
and another power decides to embargo the raw materials that
we need? Russia did this to Europe just two months ago
when they cut off the natural gas pipeline to the
Ukraine. Could this happen to us for the delivery of
oil or other raw materials we need? Absolutely; but
only if we do not have a Fleet capable of deterring these
actions.

“So what Navy do we need? A big heavy
battle force Navy ready to slug it out with a peer? A
lighter, more littoral Navy capable of asymmetric
warfare? Both? These are the hard decisions that
the Navy and the Congress are grappling with right now.
Unfortunately, the Navy has for a number of years now been
trying to build the new Fleet without much success. The
Arsenal Ship program was cancelled, the original DD21 concept
was cancelled and it reemerged as DDG 1000. The
Littoral Combat Ship program has failed to produce the
affordable, multi-capable ship which was
envisioned.

“The frank and honest assessment is that there
are not the resources to build the ships in the Navy 30 year
shipbuilding plan. The money is just not there, not
there by 5 to 6 billion dollars a year. And
that’s a lot of money.

“What then should we do? Well, we would
like the Navy to do what the Navy keeps saying makes the most
sense: build affordable ships which leverage on
commonality with other ship programs and build them in
numbers that allow for economies of purchase and investment
in infrastructure. That is a start, but it continues
with the debate on the role of the government in ensuring
that our shipyards, which only build Navy ships, have the
resources to invest in capital improvements to build the
ships for the least possible cost.

“We have already seen dividends in the
Virginia class submarine program capital improvement
initiative, which is commonly referred to as CAPEX, and we
will soon see major efficiencies because of the Bath Iron
Works Ultra Hall facility. Both these major investments
occurred with government funding, and in the end the taxpayer
benefits for lower cost ships.

“I am not yet sure what the shipbuilding
request will look like this year. I think it essential
that we build at least 10 ships, but it is important that we
get the right 10 ships built. There are some very new
threats out there to our Fleet and we need to make sure that
the Navy can counter the emerging technologies that might put
our carriers at risk even far out at sea. The debate
about the future surface Navy needs to end this year. A
decision needs to be made. After a decision is made
that both the Department and the Congress can support, we
need to fund the surface construction program at the level
necessary to restore our Fleet. Whether that number is
313 ships or 340 ships, we need to get there.

“Of course, we don’t get there as a
country without the support of the people in this
room—the suppliers and shipbuilders who build our
vessels. This effort must be a team effort between the
Department, the contractors, and the Congress. However,
we will never succeed without reasonable cost and schedule
estimates from both the government and industry. And I
understand that it is very difficult to give a cost and
schedule estimate for just one ship, without knowing if you
get to build a second ship. Or having the Navy change
specifications after contract award and design
completion.

“But I am optimistic, there are great
Americans in this room and there are great Americans across
the river in the Pentagon. The right solutions will be
found. We will build these ships and we will restore
our ability to maintain total sea control anywhere on the
world’s oceans.

“I thank you for what you do for the country,
and I thank you for inviting me to speak with you
today.”